Classic Poem

“I know not when that look did fade,
  Nor when did fail that dying grasp,
Nor how they loosed the lifeless maid,
  Stiffening within love's desperate clasp.
The sod upon her grave was green,
  The leaflet greening on the oak,
 The autumn and the winter o'er,
  When I once more to sense awoke,—
Awoke to know some joys had been
 Which now to me could be no more;
Awoke to know that life to me
Was henceforth but a girdled tree
Whose tough limbs still must bide the blast
Until the trunk to earth be cast,
Though fruit nor blossom ne'er can smile
Upon those wrestling limbs the while.